Making the best of terminal infrastructure 

Ensuring that terminal facilities in Africa respond to the growing number of passengers in a logical and phased manner will require investments in human capital and an emphasis on business use cases for these terminals.

All over the world airports are contending with growing passenger numbers. Globally, progress and recovery of the aviation industry continued strongly during 2023. Full year 2023 was at just over 94 percent of where the industry was in 2019, say industry reports. In dealing with this challenge of growing numbers, some airports have anchored their strategy on technology and smart design so that the passenger experience remains positive.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for airports worldwide in its Level of Service (LOS) best practice, considers space and queuing time requirements aimed at achieving cost effective airport infrastructure that satisfies the needs of airports, airlines and passengers. What governs the capacity of a passenger terminal building is a combination of different factors that include the capacity and interaction of different subsystems, it says. It also states that the parameters which define the capacity of a passenger terminal are directly related to factors connected with passenger experience and comfort. 

Pre-covid, The Economist listed some of the passenger experiences at airports across the world by stating: “LIKE expensive watches that never break, the world’s best airports can be boring. You land, breeze through passport control and check into a hotel within minutes. The experience is pleasant, but not memorable. The worst airports have more character. To adapt Tolstoy, lovely airports are all alike, but every wretched airport is wretched in its own way.”

Some of the experiences listed were not limited to poor or emerging economies. Even airports in rich countries had their share of challenges with their terminals. An airport was then described as “a sweltering tent next to a puddle.” In this airport, planes are often late and passengers have to sweat for hours. The departure lounge has no toilets, no food and no queuing system. This was a nation then at war.

Four recurring themes were found in awful airports. Sometimes all of these themes, it states, reinforce themselves. These are: danger, bullying by airport officials, theft and delay. 

In some airports where officials looked up to travellers to induce them to speed up their travel time, there were extortion related complaints. By doing so, air travel was described as slower, riskier, costlier, and much more unpleasant. This is more so as air travellers are tempting targets for thieves. In places like Africa those who can afford air tickets are relatively well to do. The quality of luggage is of course high in most cases and they may be far from home in places where the local rules are not too familiar. Another characteristic of those airports is that they are full of choke points which passengers must pass to board a plane and as such opens doors for them to get an unpleasant passenger experience from officials who will take advantage of such opportunities.

In its best practice design principle, IATA advises that though passenger terminal design and requirements are not similar, some best practice design principles will cover such things as: provide a safe and secure environment, provide optimum level of service, provide efficient consolidated facilities, provide seamless passenger journeys, enable efficient operations, plan for integrated systems, among others. 

These best practices can best be achieved with increased emphasis on human capital development. In the face of skill challenges in the industry, those who remain in employment should be glad they did so and have an enabling environment for them to put in their best. They should also be encouraged to continually improve on themselves and be abreast with global best practices also.

Airport expansions will require not only a well thought out process but must also have a business case for such. They should not just be legacy projects that will become challenging to manage. Again, to achieve such will require a work force with the relevant skill and expertise to advise policy makers on the way to go. This is because airports are expensive projects and involve huge sunk costs. So, getting it right the first time should be a priority for all stakeholders as they seek to serve the passenger in the face of rising passenger numbers.

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